


Blue Ink

by CosmicZombie



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Merthur - Freeform, Slow Burn, oblivious!Merlin, pining!arthur
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-08
Updated: 2016-08-08
Packaged: 2018-08-07 11:24:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7713181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CosmicZombie/pseuds/CosmicZombie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Merlin accidentally reads Arthur's diary and nothing is ever quite the same again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blue Ink

**Author's Note:**

> So this initially started out as a oneshot I did to get me back into writing a bit, but as so often my stories seem to, it just grew and grew so I decided to turn it into a chaptered fic (my first ever Merthur chaptered fic!). I think there'll probably be about five/six chapters in all and I'll try and update as regularly as I can. I'd absolutely love to know what you think of it, so if you have the time it'd be more than amazing if you left a comment when you're done reading! Hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!

Chapter One

Merlin doesn’t mean for it to happen. He isn’t even snooping. It just so happens that when he goes upstairs to get the _Great Expectations_ study guide that he’d loaned Arthur, the little journal is lying right beside it. Merlin’s curiosity is instantly piqued, because he spends at least as much time in Arthur’s room as he does in his own— and he can’t remember ever having seen the deep red, leather-bound notebook before. It’s lying on Arthur’s untidy desk, one corner poking out from underneath the half-written Shakespeare essay that’s due in for English Lit. next week. Study guide forgotten, Merlin glances hesitantly over his shoulder, hand hovering uncertainly over the unfamiliar journal.

 

He cans still hear the sound of the TV blaring downstairs where he and Arthur have been interspersing coursework with reruns of 90s sitcoms and liquorice allsorts. Arthur hates liquorice allsorts, but they’re Merlin’s favourites, and it has somehow become one of life’s familiar patterns that they stop off to buy a packet, plus two cans of Coke, from the little corner shop after school— before heading back to whoever’s house it is that night in Merlin’s shitty little car. Arthur always complains about how disgusting liquorice is and eats all the yellow coconut around it, leaving little circles of half-chewed liquorice that stick to the packet— but somehow he still buys it for Merlin anyway.

 

Outside Arthur’s bedroom window, the early summer sky is melting from pale pink into a vibrant orange that ebbs into the room, illuminating the desk where Merlin is still standing, finding himself torn between curiosity and loyalty. He glances back over his shoulder once more, half expecting to see Arthur standing in the doorway, arms folded across his chest in silent anger, betrayal burning behind his blue gaze— but the doorway is empty, and the journal is still sitting in front of him.

 

Heart thumping, Merlin tentatively slides his fingers across the soft leather of the journal’s cover, carefully turning it over in his hands. After a heartbeat’s hesitation, he opens it cautiously, running his fingertip across the smooth paper. On the inside of the cover _Arthur Pendragon_ is scrawled in Arthur’s familiar, inky blue script. A shot of guilt mingles with Merlin’s curiosity; he’s torn between feeling awful for prying in Arthur’s private things, and overwhelmingly curious as to what Arthur has that Merlin doesn’t know about. Merlin has always thought that Arthur tells him everything— but the proof that this isn’t the case weighs heavily in his hands. He finds himself feeling strangely hurt by it; as if Arthur has no right to have anything that’s his and his alone when Merlin has known him so long he knows where the nine-year old scar on his knee comes from, and how he used to be afraid of the dark. Now it’s Merlin himself who finds that he’s afraid of it: not of the dark, but of being left out there in the unknown, without Arthur.

 

Merlin swallows, glancing over his shoulder again— but the doorway to Arthur’s bedroom remains empty. Downstairs, he can hear the repetitive bursts of laughter of an audience payed for their noise. Before he can convince himself not to, Merlin opens the journal at a random page, sliding his fingertips across the paper and feeling the inky blue indentations of Arthur’s familiar, untidy handwriting under his skin. The whole page is covered in the intelligent, slightly impatient scrawl that Merlin knows so well, and he doesn’t mean to read anything— really. He’s about to snap the journal closed and put it back on Arthur’s desk when he suddenly catches sight of his own name on the page, and then he can’t help but read the sentence that follows it.

 

For several, long moments after, Merlin simply stares uncomprehendingly at the page.

 

His heart pounds in his chest, and he feels as though that single sentence has hit him with a physical blow that’s left him reeling; the world is spinning around him, making him feel as dizzy and disorientated as he did the time he took a punch for Arthur after Sports Day last year and ended up whirling into the ground. He can still remember the dull ringing in his skull; the muggy heat of the afternoon; the hard, prickling grass under him. He can remember it all so vividly that suddenly it almost feels more real than this moment— a moment that’s somehow numbed with the shock of the blue ink and the meaning it transcribes.

 

Merlin keeps staring at the A5 page with a racing heart and dry mouth until Arthur yells, “Hurry up and get back down here, Merlin, how do you expect me to do this homework without you?” from the living room, and Merlin jumps out of his skin, cheeks burning with guilt. He swallows, closing the journal numbly and placing it carefully back where he’d picked it up. The desk is overflowing with everything that’s Arthur: football magazines and dog-eared crime novels and pens with chewed lids and the framed photo of the two of them beside the desktop. The picture was taken eight years ago, on Merlin’s ninth birthday. They’re both standing on the beach even though it had been a bitterly cold April morning, Merlin swamped in Arthur’s football jacket, the two of them smiling up at the camera as though they’re in the best place in the world.

 

Merlin’s heart suddenly aches unbearably in his chest, and he can’t stand to look at the photo a moment longer. He has the strongest urge to turn it face down on the desk, but instead he grabs the _Great Expectations_ study guide and stumbles from Arthur’s room, his thoughts reeling from the way the world has been spinning since the moment he opened the journal that he wishes he’d never seen, because now nothing can be the same. Merlin’s pulse is racing uncomfortably as he descends the stairs, his fingers sweaty where they clutch the study guide and his cheeks hot and flushed as he takes a deep, shaky breath before going back into the living room.

 

“What took you so long? Surely even _you_ couldn’t get lost on the way back from my room.” It sounds as though Arthur’s rolling his eyes— but Merlin’s cheeks are still burning and he can’t bring himself to look at Arthur. Instead, he sits tentatively back down on the sofa, suddenly feeling horribly aware of Arthur’s presence beside him. It wasn’t Merlin who wrote the words, but he feels as though they’re etched all across his own face and that if he looks at Arthur, Arthur will see that he knows, and will know that Merlin has betrayed him.

 

Shifting slightly on the cushions, Merlin tries to gather himself— but no matter how many deep breaths he tries to take, his heart still thumps so fast he feels breathless. He can feel the warmth of Arthur beside him where he’s leaning back against the sofa with the sleeves of his school shirt rolled up, his blonde hair ruffled, smelling of fading cologne and the petrol from Merlin’s shitty little car, and just _Arthur_. Merlin has never felt so aware of his presence, and now it’s suddenly so much he can’t think straight.

On the screen, Merlin is vaguely aware of the adverts rolling on, but he feels strangely detached from it all. He can hear his blood thrumming in his ears, and the _Great Expectations_ study guide is heavy in his hands, the sweat making it slippery. He wants to open his mouth and blurt it all out to Arthur, but he doesn’t even know how to find the words.

 

“Did you need to go and get that study guide just so you could sit and hold it?” Arthur’s tone is mockingly amused, so familiar— but Merlin can’t stop seeing the blue, inky words in Arthur’s journal. It feels as though they’ve imprinted themselves onto his brain, and now he can’t see anything else but the words that have re-written everything.

 

“ _Mer_ lin.” Arthur’s voice sounds slightly exasperated now, the way it always sounds whenever Merlin’s daydreaming and not paying attention. Then there’s a soft, warm pressure against Merlin’s arm as Arthur nudges him. Merlin instantly flinches in reaction, dropping the textbook. It lands with a soft _thump_ on the carpet at his feet, and Merlin swallows thickly, feeling as though his world has fallen out of his grasp along with it. He’s afraid to look up.

 

“Merlin?” Arthur’s voice has a hint of concern in it now, which makes Merlin’s gaze snap up automatically, and he feels his heart turn over in his chest as he meets Arthur’s gaze for the first time since he found out.

 

Arthur’s looking at him questioningly, all blue eyes and furrowed brow. He’s tossed his work onto the coffee table and is leaning forwards, forearms resting on his thighs as he surveys Merlin worriedly. His blonde hair is ruffled from where he’s been raking his hands through it as they’ve worked, and his Adam’s apple bobs in his throat as he swallows, like he wants to say something but doesn’t. His eyes are bluer than the ink in his journal. Painfully so. It all hits Merlin like a blow to the gut, leaving him feeling as though he’s choking.

 

“Hey,” Arthur’s voice is softer now, his blue eyes brimming with concern as he looks at Merlin. He reaches out, placing a hand on Merlin’s forearm and Merlin catches a wave of the familiar clean, sharp scent of Arthur’s cologne. “ Hey, Merlin, what’s up?”

 

Merlin feels as though the warm, gentle pressure of Arthur’s hand is burning him, and suddenly he can’t breathe. Fumbling for his school bag, Merlin stumbles up unsteadily, heart pounding. His schoolbag is where he tossed it by the DVD cabinet when they came in, and as his hands stumble shakily over the strap as he hoists it onto his back, Merlin feels as though it was a different lifetime when they got back from school, arguing over something stupid like why the yellow liquorice allsorts are the best ones. He wants nothing more than to go back there— but he knows now he never can.

 

“Where are you going?” Arthur asks, the concern becoming more detectable in his voice. He scrambles to his feet too, pushing his hair out of his eyes. A line of worry creases his expression, making Merlin feel worse than ever.

 

“I— I have to go,” Merlin chokes out, guilt and confusion sticking in his throat along with all the words he desperately wants to say but can’t, _can’t_ , and doesn’t know if he’ll ever be able to. He stumbles blindly from the living room and out the front door. Arthur is calling after him, sounding perplexed and worried— but Merlin doesn’t look back, even though his heart hurts in his chest like someone’s punched it.

 

Merlin doesn’t look back until he’s driven numbly home in his ancient car that’s always too silent without Arthur there to turn up the radio and argue about Merlin’s driving. He doesn’t look back until he’s eaten dinner in subdued silence with his Mum.

 

Merlin doesn’t look back until he’s curled up in the dark under his duvet, and all he can see is that single sentence scrawled in the untidy blue ink he’s watched slowly evolve over the years alongside his own italic script; the small sentence penned by his best friend that has tipped Merlin’s world upside down in a way he never knew it could be. Just eight words, but eight words that have— in a split second— changed everything irrevocably.

 

 

_I wish I wasn’t in love with Merlin._


End file.
